Andrew Simko
Class of 2019, International Economics
Miami, Florida
Language: Spanish & Portuguese
Study Abroad: Dublin, Ireland (Fall 2017)
Proseminar: States, Bugs, & Drugs in Africa with Professor Scott Taylor
On-Campus Activities: Club Tennis, Global Business Fellows Program
Non-GU Activities: Design/Marketing Intern, Strategy & Operations Intern, and Strategy & Finance Intern at Sunshine Bouquet, a cut-flower company that has been in Simko’s family for three generations
Andrew Simko (SFS’19) knew he wanted to study economics, but it was the “inherent international flair and global outlook of the SFS” which drew him to study at Georgetown. As an International Economics major, Simko found the perfect major to match his interests. He has made an effort not to limit himself to just economics, however. “I have gotten my feet wet in so many more topics than I ever expected to coming into Georgetown four years ago,” he says. Indeed, while studying on the Hilltop, Simko has dabbled in Portuguese, a study of the cut flower business, Colombian electoral politics, and the history of the Walsh School of Foreign Service, just to name a few.
Finding His Place as a Global Citizen
Simko emphasizes that for him, although Georgetown is situated in the nation’s capital city, his time at the SFS has been about understanding and engaging with the world, not just the United States. From a proseminar about the role of NGOs in Africa’s endemic structural, political, and economic issues to a course on the politics and socio-economic challenges in Latin America, his classes have taken him across the globe. He’s also had the chance to physically travel the world by spending a semester at Trinity College in Dublin, where he learned about Irish politics and the economic challenges facing the EU, and by taking Global Business Experience, a course that culminated in a week-long international consulting project presentation in Barcelona.
Georgetown has also prepared Simko with tools for global communication. After solidifying his Spanish skills, he enrolled in Portuguese for Spanish Speakers. As an International Economics major, he’s had the chance to discuss socio-political risks facing infrastructure projects in developing countries and to explore global macro hedge fund strategies. Simko thinks that these global skills and knowledge are some of the most important things he’s gained while at Georgetown. “As our world continues to shrink, it is becoming increasingly important to be well-versed in international trade and politics, global macro events, and foreign cultures and languages,” he says.
Translating the Family Business into Learning Opportunities
Simko has spent the past five summers working for his family’s company, a vertically-integrated cut flower grower, importer, and wholesaler based in Bogotá, Colombia and Miami, Florida. He says that his time spent working for the company has influenced his career
aspirations, as well as provided invaluable experiences. He’s done everything at the company, from working in greenhouses and helping with post harvests in Colombia to brainstorming and implementing sales strategies for new customers. Based on these experiences, coming to the SFS made sense. “For me, in the context of my background with a third-generation family business that straddles North and South America and aspirations to get involved in international business, I feel the SFS has equipped me with the skills—technical and linguistic—and the globally-oriented mindset to excel going forward, wherever my career may take me.”
In fact, Simko’s International Business Operations class with Professor Gerald West allowed him to connect his experience working for the business in Bogotá and Miami to approaches to operating businesses in less developed countries. Simko calls it one of his favorite classes he’s taken at Georgetown: “Professor West’s insights into projects such as Exxon’s Chad-Cameroon pipeline, a new Tanzanian gold mine, or independent power projects in infrastructuraly weak countries beyond what paper headlines say were invaluable.” In addition, he had the chance to apply skills he learned from the course to an analysis of Dole Foods’ foray into the cut flower business, “a topic that had been of interest to me given my family’s business history in the industry.” Simko considers the paper he wrote one of the best papers that he has produced at Georgetown. “Given where I generally see my career taking me, I genuinely believe I will be able to practically apply what I learned from Professor West to help solve seemingly intransigent problems faced by businesses operating in the furthest reaches of the world,” he says.
Supportive, Encouraging, and at Times, Challenging
Simko credits many members of the Georgetown community with supporting him in his education, as well as constantly pushing him to do better. From the beginning, he had the support of his proseminar professor, Dr. Scott Taylor. Simko admits that the class, called States, Bugs, & Drugs in Africa, was not easy.
“That was the most I have ever read and written in one semester at Georgetown—and that was my Freshman fall!” he says. “However, I never felt like I lacked the resources to complete my work, which in retrospect is remarkable.” Ultimately, he says, Taylor “pushed me to become a better, more thorough, and concise writer, all while exploring an important topic I would not have studied otherwise.”
One of Simko’s favorite Georgetown memories is also one of his most challenging ones. “I distinctly remember walking into Portuguese for Spanish Speakers my Sophomore year, and not having a single clue what was going on.” The class, an accelerated version of Portuguese, starts off in Portuguese on the first day. “At the time, I could not understand Professor Riggs for the life of me, I felt like I was going insane,” Simko remembers. Over the course of the next few weeks, however, his Portuguese listening and speaking skills improved, to the point that he could understand the language and even converse. “I remember thinking at the time how it was cool how the class had levered my Spanish skills into learning an adjacent romance language without me really realizing it.”
Simko says that the class environment was what surprised him most about Georgetown. “Realistically, and especially initially, I was surprised by how challenging it was academically—yet how supportive my professors and peers alike have been.” He still remembers his 
final paper for Professor Langenbacher’s Comparative Political Systems class, which requires students to choose one country and write a detailed report on its political history and current political status quo. The paper, he says, was “perhaps the most challenging project I have done at Georgetown due to its sheer scope and the mixture of quantitative analysis via political science representativeness and fairness formulas with qualitative analysis.” Yet, to this day, he remains well-versed on the electoral system and political history of Colombia.
Through academic advising meetings in the SFS Dean’s Office, Simko met Dean Polly Robey and Dean Sam Aronson, who he says, “have by far and away been my biggest supporters… They have both been outlets and great sources of advice for everything else during my time at Georgetown.” Simko fondly recalls chatting with Dean Aronson at Tombs, the French Embassy, and of course, Pho 75 (a restaurant Andrew calls his “go-to” and his favorite in the area). He’s grateful for all Dean Robey and Aronson have done to guide him along the way: “I can’t thank them enough for guiding me through my Georgetown and SFS experience,” he says.
Georgetown and Beyond
After graduation, Andrew will move to New York to work for goetzpartners, an independent advisory and corporate finance firm based in Munich, Germany, as a Management Consulting Analyst.
Even after he leaves campus, Simko will no doubt continue to find Georgetown connections wherever he goes. During his semester abroad in Dublin, he and his friends saw Bill Clinton and his entourage right outside Trinity’s front gates. Simko recalls, “we yelled out ‘Hoya Saxa’ to him, to which he replied the same. As it was so out of the blue, we all remember it very distinctly.”
His advice to other Georgetown students is to seek out opportunities that they wouldn’t normally consider doing. “At times I felt myself regretting not trying certain things that were readily available to me, and retroactively seeking certain opportunities can be difficult,” he explains. In the spirit of trying new things, Simko decided to enroll in the one-credit History of the SFS seminar with a friend in his sophomore year. Simko says the research he conducted while in the course under the guidance of Professor Anthony Clark Arend and Emily Zenick has given him “a wealth of bizarre and random SFS and Georgetown bar trivia knowledge.” While going through old yearbooks for the course, he made an exciting discovery: “I even found my parents’ (SFS’84) yearbook photos!”